e governments of the nation--national, state and city--were
prostrate under their iron heels.

You may remember that I was a not inconspicuous figure then. Of all their
financial agents, I was the best-known, the most trusted by them, the most
believed in by the people. I had a magnificent suite of offices in the
building that dominates Wall and Broad Streets. Boston claimed me also, and
Chicago; and in Philadelphia, New Orleans, St. Louis, San Francisco, in
the towns and rural districts tributary to the cities, thousands spoke of
Blacklock as their trusted adviser in matters of finance. My enemies--and
I had them, numerous and venomous enough to prove me a man worth while--my
enemies spoke of me as the "biggest bucket-shop gambler in the world."

Gambler I was--like all the other manipulators of the markets.
But "bucket-shop" I never kept. As the kings of finance were the
representatives of the great merchants, manufacturers and investors, so was
I the representative of the masses, of those who wished their small savings
properly invested. The power of the big fellows was founded upon wealth and
the brains wealth buys or bullies or seduces into its service; my power was
founded upon the hearts and homes of the people, upon faith in my frank
honesty.

How had I built up my power? By recognizing the possibilities of publicity,
the chance which the broadcast sowing of newspapers and magazines put
within the reach of the individual man to impress himself upon the whole
country, upon the whole civilized world. The kings of finance relied upon
the assiduity and dexterity of sundry paid agents, operating through the
stealthy, clumsy, old-fashioned channels for the exercise of power. I
relied only upon myself; I had to trust to no fallible, perhaps traitorous,
understrappers; through the megaphone of the press I spoke directly to the
people.

My enemies charge that I always have been unscrupulous and dishonest. So?
Then how have I lived and thrived all these years in the glare and blare of
publicity?

It is true, I have used the "methods of the charlatan" in bringing myself
into wide public notice. The just way to put it would be that I have used
for honest purposes the methods of publicity that charlatans have shrewdly
appropriated, because by those means the public can be most widely and
most quickly reached. Does good become evil because hypocrites use it as a
cloak? It is also true that I have been "undignified." Let t